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dkevin
Newbie Alert
Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 2
Location: Seattle, WA.
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 Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 6:35 am Post subject: Vintage Gibson amps |
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| I used a Gibson amp in the 70's and grew to appreciate the difference between Fender amps and Gibson amps. Now I have several of them and I'm looking for others who love them too. Anybody out there who mods and uses Gibson amps? How about websites that share info about these amps? |
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Kirk
Sea Monkey
Joined: 12 Jun 2007
Posts: 11
Location: Sonora, CA USA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:31 pm Post subject: Gibson/ Fender /Kalamazoo Mich, |
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Hi,
I have several old Gibson amps and find help here, and as far as parts check out www.webervst.com they have a lot of good replacement parts.I am a big believer in keeping these jewels alive and well.
Kirk |
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dkevin
Newbie Alert
Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 2
Location: Seattle, WA.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:54 am Post subject: Gibson tube amps |
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I have ordered a lot of stuff from Weber for other amp projects and while I was happy with the products, I was disappointed with the shipping and handling fees.
Regarding the GA amps, I borrowed one from a friend years ago and despite some pretty serious power filtering hum, I was amazed with the warm tone and buttery tremelo. I used his GA25 until he ripped it from my hands and I swore that one day I would find one for myself. I recently found a GA17RVT, 19RVT and a GA40. Are there standard changes to be made to these amps to make them perform better? |
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muscmp
Newbie Alert
Joined: 16 Jun 2007
Posts: 2
Location: california
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| Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:34 pm Post subject: gibson amps |
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i have a few of the old gibson amps. most are great. some seem to be a little underpowered but sound great with a pedal beforehand. i particularly like the brown leather ga20 and two tone ga20t. both use 6v6s.
i'm particularly looking for a knob for a ga79rvt amp. it is the top knob in a stacked, concentric knob setup. i have tried various places but have struck out. any suggestions? i do have images if anyone wishes to see what it looks like.
thanks,
michael |
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Exothermia
Not So Newbie
Joined: 12 Jul 2007
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| I recently restored a GA-5 Skylark, early sixties Crestline model. I bought the dirty chassis, minus tubes, cabinet, speaker, with worn out caps and some wiring mods. I fixed the wiring, retubed it with all NOS USA tubes, built a new cabinet (copied a friend's Skylark), put it all together with a Gibson OEM speaker and it's all done. It sounds pretty great, it cost me about $160 or something all told, which is pretty decent considering they are usually going for $250-300 these days on eBay. |
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Dilapidus
Tadpole
Joined: 02 Apr 2007
Posts: 20
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| Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:18 pm Post subject: Oh yeah, The Skylark! |
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| Exothermia wrote: | | I recently restored a GA-5 Skylark, early sixties Crestline model.... |
Oh yeah baby! I have a GA-5 Crestline Skylark as well. I bought 2 actually. 200 (each) with shipping. Both had hum, but I figured at least one would be easily fixable. I fixed the first (power caps) and the sound is fantastic. Lovely cleans, not high and chirrupy but creamy is the right word, even through a strat. It's an beautiful sounding amp. Really fun crunchy tones, the kind that don't bother the ear after hours of play.
This is the one with two 6AQ5's in a push pull. The earlier Skylarks had a single ended configuration (almost equivalent to the Fender 5F1 Champ I think) but those are pretty pricey (400+ working) and so I'm going to simply build a head. The circuit is dirt simple and I think the parts for the head and a separate cab will be under 300.
I can't even really tell you how much this amp has energized my playing. I've got a hard job and two kids and I still find 10 hours a week or more to play, and I blame this amp. (and the Little Lanilei that I got too) :-)
I strongly recommend these amps. I believe the Epiphone EA-50 has the exact same circuit, but costs were cut in quality of parts. It may be worth trying. Try to find one that has been recapped once or has had some silly mod put in (one of mine had an asinine diode mod for the rectifier). These will be of no value to collectors, so actual guitar players can get them for a song. |
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Insane Amp Freak
Tadpole
Joined: 08 Dec 2007
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| I have allways wanted a GA-40 but never had one. |
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Dilapidus
Tadpole
Joined: 02 Apr 2007
Posts: 20
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:43 am Post subject: That circuit is not too bad either |
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| Insane Amp Freak wrote: | | I have always wanted a GA-40 but never had one. |
It might not be the right thing for a beginner though.
I'm slowly buying the parts for a 50's Bassman Head. It will be a while but that's the only way I'm likely to afford one.
If you don't know about soldering or electronics, it's gonna take regular searching on Craigslist, eBay etc. That's how I scored the GA-5's.
The thing about the 40 is that there isn't all that much clean headroom. According to the reviews, you are saturated at 3. Which will probably be fine for studio work.
I didn't used to care much about clean but then I got GA-5 and realized just how sweet a good clean can be.
Nice to see people chatting here again.
_________________
See me fumble with tube amps at http://www.paleoelectronics.com/blog |
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